Fighting Evil
by balletbaby
Summary: What the tv show Power Rangers showed on tv wasn't the whole story. Not by a long shot. What happens when Kimberly Hart decides to fight evil solo, on her own terms.
1. Chapter 1

I just recently started watching Flashpoint. LOVE it. So, this is a variation of Molly Castor's story mixed with things from Flashpoint and other things. Lemme know what you think!

"What are you doing?"

Molly jumped with fear at the sudden voice. Spinning around her eyes met a small brunette and her eyes widened in disbelief at who seemed to be standing in the middle of her livingroom.

"You can't be-"

She laughed, flashing the big grin and twinkling eyes she recognized.  
"Who I am?"

A huge grin lit up Molly's face, tears rolling down her cheeks.

Despite her joy, in a moment she'd broken down, sobbing.

Kimberly puckered her lower lip, moving in quickly. Immediately she embraced the other woman, who only sobbed harder at the contact. She was shaking trying to contain all the years of pain and anguish.

Kim just held her.

"It's okay," she soothed. "Just cry, just cry," she repeated. "Let it out," she encouraged, "it's okay. You don't have to hide it anymore."

"I," Molly gasped, "I," another gasp, "I always," she choked on a sob, "hoped-you'd- come!"

THe last word was lost in a sob, as she clung shaking like a tiny leaf, to the only person she'd ever hoped to be like, the only person she'd hoped would save her, but who never had.

Kimberly Hart sighed, resting her chin on Molly's shaking and adrenaline soaked head.

"I know," she whispered. And she did.

_We all knew._

Kim would be lying if even now over a decade later if she said she didn't think about this girl, what'd happened to her and how they'd been unable to help her.

There was evil in the world. Fighting monsters wasn't all they did. But the Power Rangers fighting people? It never made it to television when they did, although fighting monsters was the bulk of their work back then. Zordon frowned on their "interfering" in matters that could be solved by local police. Rape, domestic violence etc. Kimberly had never wanted to smash Zordon's funky aquarium as much as she had when he'd said that asinine command. It didn't matter, on her own Kimberly fought monsters of another sort entirely. If he knew about it, Zordon never mentioned it to her.

In an attempt to change the subject slightly, Kim asked a question.

"Do you know what I do for a living now? Huh?" She asked, making her words soft with higher intonations as if trying to cheer up a crying child, angling her head, cocking it to the side, trying to meet - eyes.

She smiled as if Molly'd responded. "I'm a cop!" Letting her face show her full joy and pride in her own accomplishments.

Molly laughed.

"You don't go from fighting monsters to doing nothing," she explained.

"Everyone on the team is involved in some sort of butt-kicking or child-protection as a job now. I mean, we can't be rangers forever."

"Actually we can," she whispered with a smile in her eyes, "but certain people wanted in on it."

Kimberly whipped out her wallet with alongside the traditional police badge was also a morpher.

"This thing still works, too."

Molly smiled then.

"Does it work for anyone who's holding it?"

KImberly's grin widened and her laugh rang out. A laugh Molly well remembered hearing in her younger years. "Why don't you try it and see?"


	2. Chapter 2

"KImberly?" A deep voice resonated through Molly's apartment.

Kimberly tapped her watch.

"Yes, Zordon?"

"It's come to my attention that you have morphed. Is this true?"

"No, Zordon," she smiled, "it's not true. I didn't."

Her eyes followed Molly clad all in pink as she flipped and kicked and chopped and kiyah'ed all around her apartment, pretending to fight off imaginary bad guys.

Favorite part of being a ranger, she mused. Other people were so darn cute when they pretended to be her.

There was a long pause in which you could tell that Zordon was ticked off.

"Kimberly, we've discussed sharing your morpher with other people."

"Yes, Zordon." She didn't sound sorry. She wasn't. She was simply confirming the truth.

"I thought I told you to stop doing that."

"Ey-ah!" Molly karate chopped the footstool. It flipped over.

"You've been defeated!" Molly proclaimed loudly, her voice muffled slightly by the pink helmet.

"You did," she answered in a cheery voice, eyes still following Molly.

"But you have not stopped."

She shook her head. "No, Zordon."

"Kimberly, you must stop doing this. Take your morpher back immediately. If you cannot stop yourself from using it, or letting others use it, I must insist you return it to the Command Center."

"Are you going to come and get it?"

Hearing this taunt, Molly laughed hysterically, covering her mouth with a couch pillow.

"That is not amusing, Kimberly."

"Actually, Zordon, it kind of is."

"Not to me, it isn't."

"I realize that Zordon. I'm sorry."

And with that the line of communication was broken.

Kimberly looked at Molly. "You know how many times I wanted to smash this thing?"

She was refering to her communicator.

Molly took 'her' helmet off. "You know, that guy is a real buzz-kill."

Kim rolled her eyes. "Tell me about it."

It had taken Molly a while to forget her giddiness. Just when Kim thought Maybe she won't be mad, Molly changed. Kim watched her face darken and fall, as if dark storm clouds had just passed overhead.

Molly got real quiet, and she scowled in a pouting way at Kimberly. She threw Hart's morpher back at her, and crossed in front of her, pink ranger uniform dissappearing as she moved, sitting down on the couch. She sat there arms crossed over her chest glaring at the former Pink Ranger.

"If you're here now, where have you been? Why didn't you show up before, when I needed you?"

"I'm here now. Don't you need me now?"

She seemed so sincere, almost hurt, but Molly needed to speak the truth.

"Where were you before? When I was beaten almost to death? When they were holding me down and raping me? Torturing me? Tearing my body to pieces? Putting in all these scars?"

Her voice was high pitched and emotional, but all truth. This pained her to her core. She was shattered.

She'd had the privilege of seeing that. How Molly had become like an animal in captivity. And that was exactly what she was to them. A being who did not matter. Whose pain didn't matter.

Kimberly saw Molly do whatever it took to survive. Whatever. Her body and mind adapted as it had to, to the unique circumstances of each day. Whether they were raping her or torturing her or torturing her by being nice and doing nothing to create the illusion of safety, which just had Molly on her guard all day, Molly had to find a way to cope, to adapt. To survive.

Kim remembered all of it. Them ripping her clothes off the way a group of lions rip flesh off of an animal. With the same violence, with the same not caring. But at least the lions weren't actively trying to inflict pain. THey were simply trying to survive, trying to get food. They got no joy from causing the animal pain. And lions put their prey out of their misery.

And this was where the actual animals and the animals holding Molly captive differed. They enjoyed causing her pain, both physical and mental. They enjoyed both the physical torture and the psychological.

Molly had to adapt or die.

Sometimes that meant fighting. Sometimes that meant not fighting. Sometimes it meant giving up her soul, her belief in her own value in order to endure what was being done to her. Always it meant lying. She showed no fear, and tried to show no pain in order to try to help herself, to attempt to lessen her abuse.

It was because she saw her past efforts as a failure that she tortured herself now. Should have been able to stop them. Should have been strong enough. If she'd been a nice and loveable person they never would have done such things to her.

She knew what they'd done was wrong, but she was so used to abuse that she simply felt depressed and resigned to worse. She didn't believe it was a likely reality that she would ever be treated well by the people who loved her, or by anyone.

And Kim had to give her credit for the next bit. Whereas most torture victims and abuse victims turned to suicide or drugs or, in the case of sexual abuse, sexual promiscuity with little care to themselves- their self having been stripped of value long ago- Molly simply retreated.

To avoid being treated badly she avoided people entirely. The thought of a boy 'loving' her threw her into a panic. The idea of love at all was seen as a threat and made Molly want to reach for a loaded gun to fight it off.

Made sense to Kimberly. If the only form of love you'd ever known for years was that love hurt you, humiliated you, sent you to the ER, nearly killed you- you couldn't see love as a good thing either. Molly was finally able to take control of her own life and not allowing people near her was smart. It was an effort not just to avoid emotional pain, but to avoid anyone else trying to murder her. It was finally allowing her control. Allowing her to choose for once who had access to her and who didn't.

"So?"

Kim snapped out of her thoughts.

"I'm sorry, what?" She asked.

"I said how come you or the Power Rangers didn't come to save me?"

_Which time_? It was sad that the question immediately formed in Kim's mind.

"Um..."


	3. Chapter 3

Out of the hundred or so people reading, only one brave soul is reviewing? Really? That hurts. I feel like I'm writing to a silent audience. And I thrive on my audience. My readers comments always give me a lot of new ideas- so talk away! Please. I've seen some bits with Jules that really stuck with me, so that's where we'll be going here. That reminds me I can't believe no one commented on the bit with Zordon! Come on you guys! I thought it was funny.

Molly was in the middle of a full blown panic attack.

She was curled up on the floor of her tiled bathroom, with the door locked, shaking, sweating, and sobbing. It was happening again.

As much as she hated retreating to her bathroom, it was the only door that locked securely. Sadly the three deadboldts on her apartment door and the locked door in the building lobby weren't enough to make her feel safe. With that door locked and closed, her bedroom door closed, and the bathroom (which was in her room) closed and locked, it helped that she had three doors between her, and what was currently terrifying her. It wasn't that she lived in a horrible neighborhood, she didn't. In all likelyhood the mailman had rung the bell to notify her of a package, but that wasn't what her brain told her- at least not the part that took her over completely canceling out any rational sense.

She had the freedom to sob, she didn't always have that. Like when someone knocked on her door. Then all she could do was freeze in place without a single movement to make a floor board creak or give away the fact that she was home. As it was she listened to her music and her television through headphones. Just as much to allow the idea that she might not be home, as it was an additional way to block out the sounds that petrified her, and could bring her to this state: in her bathroom sobbing and shaking with terror.

Molly had been minding her own business, walking to the kitchen to prepare something to eat for breakfast, from what was left in her fridge, when someone rang her doorbell.

Molly froze in place, her heart immediately pounding in her chest and her brain screaming, _"Hide! Hide! Hide! Get away before they come to get you!"_

After that moment of frozen terror, knowing that whoever was ringing her doorbell was downstairs in the lobby. She had time. Quick as a bunny, Molly ran on tip-toe, double checked the locks on her front door, then dashed into the bedroom, softly closing the door behind her. From there it was a mad dash to the bathroom where she closed and locked the door from the inside.

She was glad that the lock wasn't a flimsy door lock in the knob, but an old form of dead-boldt. The door would have to be broken down before it would open.

Her hands were covering her ears as she crouched, still, hardly daring to breathe when she heard her doorbell again. Molly winced at the sound as if she'd been struck.

Who would be ringing her doorbell?

Anyone who knew her knew to call before they showed up, and that she would not answer the door otherwise. Unless they did something like yell, "Hey, Molly!" Both a voice that she recognized, plus the knowledge that most strangers wouldn't know her name and wouldn't embarrass themselves by yelling like a child.

_It's someone coming to get you,_ her mind told her.

_It's only a matter of time before they get upstairs. You know someone in this building will be stupid and let them in. Then they'll come knocking on your door. THen they'll pound on your door. Then they'll break your door down and beat and rape you and no one's going to stop them because no one cares about you._

Molly nodded. That's right. Totally right. Exactly what would happen if I let anyone in here.

And why not? It's almost exactly what happened to her every day as a child, and as a teenager. No one had stopped it, and no one had cared, even when she told.

It was times like this that she longed for a gun.

But instead she lay on the tiled floor of the cramped bathroom, her curled up body just barely fitting in the space left between the sink and bathtub, sobbing softly into the bathtowel she'd yanked down from the towel rackso as not to disturb the neighbors, or worse, bring them to her door asking if she needed help. There was nothing worse, no worse hell on earth than having people in her space. Unless of course the people in her space were doing horrible things to her.

Then, like a gunshot, there was a rapid, fast knock at the door, so close it was like someone was pounding on her head.

It was her worst nightmare finally come true again. Someone had broken through her defenses to get to her.

How the hell did they get through all three deadbolts?

"Molly? It's me! Kimberly!"

"Open the door!"

The voice was insistant.

Molly gasped in relief first, that it was a female voice, lessening the chance of a sexual assault. Felt relief when she recognized the voice as indeed belonging to who she'd come to know as Kimberly Hart, the Pink Power Ranger.

Still shaking, stress sweat rolling down her face neck and back, Molly slowly, softly rose from the floor, a hand to the door still holding her breath, still expecting that this was all a ruse and she would be killed any instant.

At least it'd get it over with, she thought. Meaning of course, her life of pain and abuse.

Still slowly and as silently as possible she turned the lock on the bathroom door, then slowly opened it.

As she opened the door she steeled herself, ready for the blow that would knock her down to the floor. Ready for the kicks to her head, groin, and gut.

Ready, because unlike a Power Ranger, she had no physical strength to defend herself.

Molly didn't realize she had her eyes squeezed shut until she hear Kim's voice saying,

"Hey, it's not a surprise, you can open your eyes, Molly!"

When she did, Molly was surprised not to see Kim Hart as she knew her, all clad in pink, but wearing the all black uniform of a SWAT style police officer.

"Did you switch rangers?"

Kim smiled. "Nope."

"I just came by to say hey."

"So that was you ringing the doorbell!"

She sighed, realizing that Kim had no way of knowing her first rule, and that she'd have to explain herself.

"You have to call and let me know you're coming over," she explained, "if you ring the bell or knock on the door or-"

"You go through this?" Kim's voice was soft as she nodded to the pale and still shaking Molly, while motioning to the bathroom floor, glancing at the door's lock.

Molly felt shame and looked down.

"Something like that," she muttered.

"I'm not here to judge," she answered. "And I didn't ring your doorbell."

"You didn't?"

"Why would I need to?"

"You teleported your ass here in your cop gear?"

"Zordon hasn't stopped me yet." Kim flashed her trademark smile.

"Then who rang my doorbell?"

Kim shrugged.

"I have no idea."

Molly looked at her.

Instantly Kim held up her rifle. "I'll double check to see that no one's out there."

Molly knew Kimberly meant both her apartment at large, and the building as a whole.

Seeing Kim's gun along with her confident demeanor Molly felt safe-er.

"Wait!" Molly stuck out a hand, ready to grab at or stop Kim's forward motion.

Kim, under a thick fringe of brown bangs and the black rim of her hat looked at her in confusion.

"I can't let you do that. At least, not alone."

"Why not?"

"Does your team ever let people do stuff like this alone?"

"Usually not," she admitted, "but that's only when the suspect is armed. Right now you have no logical reason to believe that anyone is here to hurt you." She said the phrase like a question, for Molly's benefit.

Molly sighed, embarrassed by having her insanity pointed out so obviously.

She moved forward again, to Molly's bedroom door, and again Molly stopped her.

"I can't let you put yourself at risk," Molly explained.

"I'll check," she added, moving past Kim.

When she'd checked the perimeter of her apartment she circled back and relayed the news to a waiting and disturbed Kimberly. "No one's out there."

With an expression Molly couldn't decipher Kim answered. "But you thought there was. You felt so threatened that you closed yourself in your room then in your bathroom behind a locked door, curled up on the floor."

Molly just blinked. "Yeah?" She shrugged. What's your point? was the indication.

"You thought your life was in danger- at least on some level-" Kim held out a hand to ward off Molly's assertation that she knew logically that she was safe and that she wasn't in danger.

"And yet you left me to be certain your space was safe- even though I have the gun. And body armor."

Again Molly just shrugged.

"Why?" She asked.

"I couldn't risk letting you get hurt. I'm used to this sort of thing."

Kimberly Hart felt saddness weight heavy on her.

_"I'm used to being attacked. I'm used to this life_

_This life of constant terror._

"It wouldn't be fair to expose you to it."

"But I have a high powered rifle," Hart insisted. "I have body armor. You'd have to shoot me with a canon to take me out!"

Again, Molly just shrugged. But Kimberly Hart knew what the woman was not saying.

_You matter. I don't. My life is expendable, but yours is worth protecting. _

_I'm worthless. _


End file.
